Review: Ashes by Ilsa J. Bick

Ashes by Ilisa J. Bick

Published: September 6, 2011 by Egmont USA

Hardcover, 465 pages

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It could happen tomorrow . . . 

An electromagnetic pulse flashes across the sky, destroying every electronic device, wiping out every computerized system, and killing billions. 

Alex hiked into the woods to say good-bye to her dead parents and her personal demons. Now desperate to find out what happened after the pulse crushes her to the ground, Alex meets up with Tom—a young soldier—and Ellie, a girl whose grandfather was killed by the EMP. 

For this improvised family and the others who are spared, it’s now a question of who can be trusted and who is no longer human. 

Author Ilsa J. Bick crafts a terrifying and thrilling novel about a world that could be ours at any moment, where those left standing must learn what it means not just to survive, but to live amidst the devastation. --GoodReads

Review

Let me describe to you in a few words that I thought magically sum this book up to a T.

• Zombies/monsters
• (Peck/Rip/Rip Open/Scratch/Score/Cut/Gouge/Sliced) Flesh
• Bloody Bloody Blood with a slice of knife

Let's just say that Ashes wasn't my cup of tea. It was more like, oh, I don't know, the super hard biscuit that you get on the side for no apparent reason. Just because. It's bleh-meh-fweh, but you'll still eat it anyway because everyone says it's really good. You go in to bite, and yyyy-ouch. 

yeeeuck

You know that feeling? Well, that's how I felt when I read this book. Not to mention this:

No, no, go on. I'm tooooootally listening.

Aww. I don't mean to come of as such a meany-jerky face, but seriously...any more of it, and I'd be this:

Not playing possum this time...

Okay, okay. I'll get on with the review. Now, I might not be justified in reviewing this, because, well... I have a confession to make. If you can't stand people reviewing a half-finished book, then get outta here. I didn't have the patience to continue past page 200-ish, so........ you get the picture.

If I ever finish the book and I have something to add, I'll probably write another review. 
So let's call this Ashes, Review, PART 1!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

OK. The ACTUAL review shall commence!!!!!!!!!
Plot: Electromagnetic zap around the world... girl named Alex with tumor goes around hiking.... encounters a cheeky little girl Ellie..... tumor goes away after Zap...bunch of stuff.... they meet Tom..... other stuff..... Alex and Ellie realize what happend..... people could have died.... yaddayaddayadda....then this is where I stopped reading. Yup.

Now, I'm completely fine with all these gory/survival/bloody/animals pecking out any part of your body stuff, but this was quite graphic. I mean, I was okay, just some people might not have been. I'm not saying everyone in general, just the weak-stomached. You might want to take note of that when deciding to give it a try. And I quote...

"In another life, they might have been a couple, having a picnic. Except these kids weren't munching sandwiches. There was also a woman, a grandmotherly sort who lay flat on the ground, head thrown back, mouth unhinged...Judging from the dried rills of blood on her right cheek, that eye was gone. So was her throat...the knobby tube of her windpipe slopping out like a fleshy tapeworm. The blood--and there had ben a lot of it--had dried to rust in a wide bib over the woman's chest" (Bick 73).

"Like, ohmygod! What should I do??? BLOOD"

My sediments, exactly, random lady

It goes on for about another 3-4 pages describing this nasty gory scene of these 2 teens, normal people, just like you and me, who decide to join the Cannibalistic Movement of America. They were turning this poor (dead) woman's insides into outsides. It was disgusting, blood, yet I couldn't tear my eyes away from the book's very detailed, explicit descriptions of this gory nastiness. Props to Bick for creating (alarmingly) realistic scenes that come alive into your mind. It's like they become permanently etched/tattooed into your brain...it makes me wonder how she even came up with that stuff! So, I give Bick 5/5 when it comes to settings/scene descriptions. I could easily visualize what was going on where, when, and how.

What really was my favorite part about this book would probably be how Bick portrays all of Alex's emotions and thoughts. She isn't stupid, and she's quite logical about survival situations. I learned quite a lot from reading just a few chapters. Character development (which can be interpreted any way you want (*wink* *wink* you'll get this if you knew it was a ZOMBIE book)) was a big thumbs up for me in this book. Alex and especially Ellie definitely change and mature over the course of a few weeks. If you ever want to learn about how fragile the human mind/emotions are, read the book! It's full of Alex talking about how she feels in *blankety-blank* situations.

Also, it's really hard not to like Alex (in the first 200 pages; again, I haven't completely finished the book). Ellie was plain annoying, but I have to admit: I think she grew on me a little bit! She's kinda...nice? Tom is definitely a handy-man. Wouldn't mind a guy like that around (as my servant (you know, to fix the sink and stuff)).

Hmmm. Well, my main issue of this book was that it just didn't interest me once it hit a certain spot. I think it was aroundpage 170, or so, when I just became disinterested. That's a problem for me. If I like a book, I shouldn't have to "wait! It gets good when you reach page (BLANKETY BLANK)." If it's a truly amazing book that I will enjoy, I don't think I should have to suffer through tons and tons of boredom to get there. Call me impatient, but that's how I truly felt about this book. 

I've looked through a few different reviews, and some people agreed with me on the fact that it just loses the "AMAZING" factor about halfway through. What happened? Whatever did happen obviously did not help Bick's cause. Overall, I thought it was okay. I loved the visual descriptions and the goryness of the book, but  something just didn't click for me. I was getting bored constantly, and I wasn't able to pay attention, or let alone care enough to try to remember what was going on. I would recommend this book for die-hard zombie apocolyptic horror gory fans, and survival junkie readers. I know I'm being really picky here, so, please keep that in mind. I know a lot of people who really enjoyed this book, and hopefully, you can be one of those people, too!

Happy Reading and see you next week!

Order Ashes at: Amazon/ B&N/ TBD

Review: Struck by Jennifer Bosworth

 

Struck (Struck #1)

By Jennifer Bosworth

Published: May 8th, 20112

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux BYR

Hardcover, 373 pages

Mia Price is a lightning addict. She’s survived countless strikes, but her craving to connect to the energy in storms endangers her life and the lives of those around her.

Los Angeles, where lightning rarely strikes, is one of the few places Mia feels safe from her addiction. But when an earthquake devastates the city, her haven is transformed into a minefield of chaos and danger. The beaches become massive tent cities. Downtown is a crumbling wasteland, where a traveling party moves to a different empty building each night, the revelers drawn to the destruction by a force they cannot deny. Two warring cults rise to power, and both see Mia as the key to their opposing doomsday prophecies. They believe she has a connection to the freak electrical storm that caused the quake, and to the far more devastating storm that is yet to come.

Mia wants to trust the enigmatic and alluring Jeremy when he promises to protect her, but she fears he isn’t who he claims to be. In the end, the passion and power that brought them together could be their downfall. When the final disaster strikes, Mia must risk unleashing the full horror of her strength to save the people she loves, or lose everything. - Goodreads

3 stars

 Review 

When I fist stumbled across this book, I was very excited. It seemed like an original book that was different from anything else I've read, however, it didn't live up to my expectations.

It was that first statement that really grabbed me, "Mia Price is a lightning addict". That was what I was most interested in, Mia being a lightning addict and her special abilities connected to it. I thought that this was a great new idea, and I wanted to know more. Unfortunately, it was not explored nearly enough, and I was very disappointed. Instead, the story is all about how Mia falls in love with this beautiful and mysterious guy that won't tell her anything, how she unthinkingly runs into danger to save her family, and her being stupid again and again. From the summary I thought that it was an original story, but after looking under the surface it proved to be like most YA books.

One of the things that annoyed me the most was Mia, she is a nice girl who genuinely tries to help out, but she undermines herself. Almost all of of Mia's problems could have been avoided if she just sat down and talked it out. It bothered me that she didn't even think of talking to her brother, and then runs around trying to keep him out of trouble.

Some thing that did make me glad was that there wasn't a love triangle, I find love triangles a bit over done. Although, it was insta-love between Mia and Jeremy and there wasn't much development in their relationship. Jeremy is cool and mysterious, but not the brightest. He insists on not telling Mia the truth when the truth would have been much more convincing and effective. Besides that, I pretty much liked Jeremy, especially the shock that he provides towards the end.

I also liked how Mia's special abilities tie into the plot, and how it connects everything. Surprisingly enough, I didn't mind all of the religion in it, and I think that is because it made sense for the story. The rest of the book, including the writing, was ok, but it would have been so much better if it stuck to the originality of the beginning and continued with it instead of using so many cliches.

Purchase this book: Amazon/ Barnes&Nobles/ The Book Depository

Review: Starters by Lissa Price

Starters (Starters and Enders #1)

By Lissa Price

Release Date: March 13, 2012

Publisher: Delacorte Books for Young Readers

Hardcover, 352 pages

HER WORLD IS CHANGED FOREVER 

Callie lost her parents when the Spore Wars wiped out everyone between the ages of twenty and sixty. She and her little brother, Tyler, go on the run, living as squatters with their friend Michael and fighting off renegades who would kill them for a cookie. Callie's only hope is Prime Destinations, a disturbing place in Beverly Hills run by a mysterious figure known as the Old Man.

He hires teens to rent their bodies to Enders—seniors who want to be young again. Callie, desperate for the money that will keep her, Tyler, and Michael alive, agrees to be a donor. But the neurochip they place in Callie's head malfunctions and she wakes up in the life of her renter, living in her mansion, driving her cars, and going out with a senator's grandson. It feels almost like a fairy tale, until Callie discovers that her renter intends to do more than party—and that Prime Destinations' plans are more evil than Callie could ever have imagined. . . --Goodreads

5 Stars

Review 

I can not say how much I enjoyed this book. I know that dystopian novels are blowing up in the YA book world, but I can promise you that this book is one of the BEST dystopian novels ever.

Callie was such an awesome protagonist! So while her body is being rented by an Ender, she finds out that that Ender's granddaughter, along with a lot of other kids, were taken by Prime and never seen again, so she wants to stop that. In order to stop Prime, the Renter wants Callie to kill the Old Man, the person running Prime. Since the Ender is using Callie's body to murder someone, Callie is in danger because she will be sentenced to death for killing another person.

Callie had a struggle between helping her sick brother by finishing her rental and bringing home money, therefore able to buy food for everyone to eat or doing the right thing and help the Renter stop Prime and prevent other kids from going "missing." This struggle that Callie had kind of reminds me of the struggle that Katniss from the Hunger Games had, where Katniss had to decide between getting out of the Games alive, so she can have money to support her family, by going against her morals and killing others or doing the right thing. Callie being the smart cookie that she is, eventually figures out a way to stop Prime without killing.

Now what is a YA book without a love interest? So the love interest of this book was Blake. He was so kind to Callie, but Callie knew that she shouldn't get involved because soon she will leave and go back to her old life, where things are not as glamorous. But she does get involved, but finds out that Blake is not an ordinary, rich kid, but the Senator's grandson, the very Senator that is working with Prime and the Old Man!!! 

The thing I love most about Starters was all of the super cool made up technology that they had. It all sounded so cool, even the Spore Wars was a cool concept where it rained these black specs and if the specs touch you you are done for. (side-note: The Spore Wars kind of remind me of the Avatar the Last Airbender where if it starts to "rain" black snow/specs that means the Fire Nation is coming and you and your city are in grave danger.)

There's honestly nothing bad I can really say about this book, therefore it is a five out of five stars! Yay for awesome books!

The ending: The ending was THE BIGGEST CLIFFHANGER in the history of cliffhangers. I had so many questions...what's going to happen between the REAL Blake and Callie? Who is the Old Man? Are we positive that Callie's dad died along with everyone else during the Spores War? Needless to say, I absolutely can not wait until Enders, the sequel to Starters, comes out. Oh, if you have read Starters tell me what your predictions are. Who do you think is the Old Man? I think it's her dad... I know creepy right?? So leave a comment below and tell me what you predict for Enders.

Purchase the book: Amazon / Barnes&Noble / The Book Depository